'There has been tremendous hub-bub about the rolling out of 5g, with many concerns about the potential health effects of bathing the world’s population in electromagnetic radiation. Now, experts warn that there are other major safety concerns about 4g and 5g networks — namely, security. As it turns out, these networks have three major security flaws that can allow malicious actors to tap your phone calls, send fake text messages — and even trace your location.

These newly discovered flaws are the first known problems afflicting both 4g and 5g networks. Ironically, 5g was promoted as being more secure than generations past, but security researchers say the “better” protections that were promised can be easily beaten with new attack methods. To make matters worse, the experts say anyone with a modicum of knowledge regarding cellular paging procedures can exploit these vulnerabilities.

Researchers discover critical flaws in 4g, 5g

Researchers from Purdue University and the University of Iowa teamed up to put 4g and 5g networks to the test, and what they found was shocking: Even the supposedly more secure 5g network can still be exploited with relative ease.

Three major flaws were discovered: Torpedo, Piercer and IMSI Cracking are all attacks that malicious actors can carry out over these networks.

As Daily Mail reports, Torpedo “takes advantage of a flaw in a network’s paging protocol,” and is the worst of the three attacks. Paging protocols make up the system which notifies phones of incoming texts and phone calls. By exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can track a victim’s location.'